A Nameless Grave

A Nameless Grave. By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

“A soldier of the Union mustered out,” , is the inscription on an unknown grave , at Newport News, beside the salt-sea wave, , nameless and dateless; sentinel or scout , shot down in skirmish, or disastrous rout , of battle when the loud artillery drave , its iron wedges through the ranks of brave , and doomed battalions, storming the redoubt. , Thou unknown hero sleeping by the sea , in thy forgotten grave. With secret shame , I feel my pulses beat, my forehead burn, , when I remember thou hadst given for me , all that thou hadst, thy life, thy very name, , and I can give thee nothing in return.

, And in honor of the 252 valiant American sailors – 5 Confederate, 247 Union – who gave their lives to defend a cause they believed to be just on March 8, 1862, during the battle off Newport News between the Confederate ironclad Virginia (ex-Merrimack), 2 killed; the Confederate gunboats Raleigh and Beaufort, 3 killed; the Union sloop-of-war Cumberland, 121 killed; the Union frigate Congress, 120 killed; the Union steam frigate Minnesota, 3 killed; and the Union steam tender Whitehall, 3 killed. This was the day before the celebrated duel between the C.S.S. Virginia and the U.S.S. Monitor which ended in a draw and in which no lives were lost.